For many of us who have spent our lives honing our creative skills in the Arts, be it writing, painting, photography or music training, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has dealt a thumping blow. Now in a matter of seconds, AI can produce pieces of creative work that would otherwise take hours, if not days, and also at a fraction of the cost. The prospect of this is truly worrying if not frightening, to say the least.
Take the much-acclaimed photograph of Boris Eldagsen that won a prize recently, for instance. The German-born photographer’s work titled ‘The Electrician’ was awarded first place in the World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards. Of course, Eldagsen refused the prize saying that his black and white photograph was generated by AI using the DALL-E2 application. He said later that he “was just making a test to see if they were aware.” It is interesting indeed that Eldagsen showed that AI-generated images have faults that can be noticed by the discerning eye. Certain details such as the eye pupils, nails and fingers of the woman in the image demonstrate that it was generated by AI. This, at least, is good news for photographers who spend their lifetime capturing images through hard work and dedication to their craft.
Still, Eldagsen also says that AI-generated images will continue to improve with time and that competitions should allow a separate entry category for AI images because this itself, is an art that has to be finetuned by the artist- the creative director of the image. He adds that he has no answer to the question as to whether this is true photography.
I think the answer to this would be more clear-cut to the person who has invested years in studying photography as a craft. And this sort of debate would definitely percolate through to other areas of AI-generated creativity as well.
AI and its many skills
Everyone knows that AI is able to write scripts, advertisements, creative content and even create songs and lyrics. In addition, it is now being used to create movie trailers and special effects in movies. Again, the processes involved in these have been sizably reduced so that content is generated within the span of a few hours, where it would normally take weeks. And well, especially in the Creative Industry time is money, and AI seems to be saving the industry tons of it. So really, people are reluctant to work without AI because, who wouldn’t want to save money?
But the underlying question is this. While AI can produce various creative pieces in the various creative industries, can it do this work without some direction and supervision? At the moment it doesn’t look like it. Human beings are still in control of the creative process, and need their own expertise to finetune pieces that are generated by AI. Margaret Boden who is an advisor at the Stephen Hawking Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence said in an interview with IBM that certain music creators who hear some notes being generated by AI will be able to create something based on the idea that has been produced. But she says that those who are experts in their field will be able to use this sort of AI-generated music to invent an entirely new piece of music. She calls this ‘transformational creativity.’
The same should apply for writing. Those in the Advertising and Media industries who work as content writers are increasingly worried that AI is taking over their jobs. All one needs to do is to enter a prompt on any AI app such as Jasper, Copy.ai, Anyword among a host of others, and they will generate content along the lines of your topic or prompt. However, the use of AI in such a manner is unethical and akin to plagiarism. And whilst this is spoken about a great deal in the public sphere, those who are unethical will still cheat whether or not AI is present as an option. Certainly, cheating is made easier because of it, but the wise will know that depending only on AI for creativity is not only limiting but also quite imprudent.
Can AI work on its own?
In theory it can. However, if one is looking for practically-sound results, leaving the job to AI won’t do. It’s very simple, actually. When writing AI produces content based on algorithms that predict the next possible word that could appear in a certain sentence. So, while AI can produce a prosaic piece of work that seems skillfully crafted in terms of lexicon and language, the final result may not actually make complete sense unless read through by someone who possesses knowledge about the subject and is edited for clarity. It is much the same with any other forms of art such as photographs, graphics and music. Human intelligence needs to be the steering point and controlling factor behind it all.
However, none of this gives AI a free pass in the world of creativity. To the wordsmith out there who thrills at the thought of crafting their writing with carefully-coined phrases and immersing themselves in the myriad ideas that can be played with on the paper, AI is a technology that takes away the joy of writing. There’s no point in learning the rules of grammar or spelling anymore because AI can correct all that for you in the blink of an eye. Out of ideas for a script? You don’t need to read or research- AI will do the job for you. What is being suggested here is that saving money and time has taken precedence over the value of genuine skill, knowledge, hard work and aptitude. I lament this shift in our consciousness every day.
Thinking out loud…
So, AI may not be heralding the death of the Arts. Yet. However, it is certainly stifling creativity as we know it. After all, a great purpose of the Arts is to bring joy to their creators in the conception process and to astound the receivers of such work in the knowledge that the human mind produced such brilliance. But with AI stepping into the picture, the role of the creator is largely diminished in order to bring instant gratification to both the creator and the beholder.
There’s really very little joy in that.
(Anouk De Silva)